Buying Football Boots?

Arsenal were more steel than style at Old Trafford

Arsenal came away from yesterday’s game at Man United with a point, despite lacking the usual freeflowing attacking football that we are used to seeing. In fact the Gunners did not have a shot on target until Olivier Giroud’s late late equaliser from Oxlade-Chamberlain’s superb cross.

Most Gooners were at a loss to understand why Wenger dropped Iwobi and Xhaka in favour of Ramsey (Doh!) and Elneny, but this is how he explained the changes. “I knew it would be a bit more of a physical battle so I chose players who have experience and fight,” Wenger told Arsenal.com.

“That’s why my selection was because of that. At the end of the day, everyone gave their maximum and there is a special spirit in the squad. That’s why we came back, because the players who came on made the difference. That’s remarkable.

By any standard Arsenal were poor, but of course Arsene Wenger as always tries to put a positive spin on coming away with a point, and he thinks we earned it well. “Considering the first half, yes [it was a fair result]. We had a lot of possession but in the second half when we came out of the dressing room, we dropped. We offered less going forward, but when we were 1-0 down we found the resources again.

“We want to be about style and steel but today we were more about steel than style. There’s a remarkable resilience in the squad and that’s why we came back to 1-1. We didn’t have the usual fluency in our game. Was that because Manchester United blocked us well? I think it was because we were also not at our best going forward.”

That may be the understatement of the year Arsene, but we can take some solace that we are still unbeaten in 18 games, and in any other year a draw at Old Trafford would be considered a good result. But oh, the performance was embarrassing!

7 thoughts on “Arsenal were more steel than style at Old Trafford”

It was a very decent point. In the past Wenger would have tried playing utd off the pitch even though he should know that it plays into Mour hands. This shows he has learned or re-learned. Even the best Arsenal sides knew sometimes you just need to be difficult to beat, and we were difficult to beat. I imagine if our forwards had shown up we could have easily won this match, but too many of them just didn’t.

Worst decision of the day….Ramsey on the left. Gave room for Valencia to be handled Man of the Match. Imagine an Ox on the left, Valencia will be nowhere to be found. Anyways, good we had a point to take home and also good that Liverpool slipped.

We could have….. We should have….We might have won the game with Iwobi and Xhaka as starters. We can also lose the game with both of them as starters. Not holding brief for Wenger. He had a plan but it didn’t work effectively but at least we got a point.